I know a beautiful vantage point in our town. And I usually have it all to myself.

You know it too.

That open area above Perkins, between Perkins and Wyandotte.

I’ve seen it called Triangle Park. And the Hub Tract.

Some sensitive City planner (whose decision was it? I need to know. I want to high-five!) put three benches there.

Looking right down the spine of the Southside.

The view is beautiful.

Straight ahead you might not be able to see forever but certainly as far as the Antalics homestead on the Ridge.

But it’s the Cityscape you want to look at.

The Banana Factory is dead ahead.

And in one sweep from right to left, you can pick out all our major landmarks from the slender Packer Chapel spire through the grimy nest of stacks to the hulking Hotel B.

And you are in the town, can sense it throb, not ethereally disconnected like you are at the Lehigh Lookout or Mountaintop Tower vantages.

The thunder of the traffic running but a few feet behind you becomes as natural as waves crashing on a vacation beach.

I love to sit there and take in the hustle and bustle flowing in and out of our Southside.

I even look forward to stalled traffic on Wyandotte offering a moment of urban voyeurism when I am driving.

There used to be a park there. The monument for the 14 Bethlehem draftee “boys” whose lives were snuffed in one demonic swoop on the way to their first military assignment used to mourn there. Like an archaeologist, you can find the embedded stony ruins left when the monument packed up and migrated to the Rose Garden.

There’s still an inviting grove of trees, with a rock-stool inviting you to pause, lean back against a sturdy trunk, and let the rest of the world race by, Rip Van Winkle-like.

There’s a developer’s sign. Two actually. One is knocked down, facing the heavens instead of 3rd St.. I’d leave it there. Let it be for the birds to poop on and the space aliens to ponder over.

I fear the developer’s appetite for open space. Will a dentist’s window frame this view for root-canal’d patients? Will green eyeshades color the view for accountants pausing from stacks and spires of calculations?

When I sit there I hear the ominous, haunting lyric of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” that I have recast above in the epigraph.

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Published by The Bethlehem Gadfly

Edward J. Gallagher, Bethlehem immigrant, retired, nearly 50 years as Professor of American Literature at Lehigh University, known as "Dr. G" and "Conan the Grammarian" to students, whose virtual world avatar "EdwardScholarhands" stares at you here, has reinvented himself as the Bethlehem Gadfly.
View all posts by The Bethlehem Gadfly

The view is part of the historic gateway to Bethlehem for so many motorists, as well as intrepid walkers like Gadfly. With the amazing streetscape of the three other corners -Nativity, Chabad House, and Sayre Mansion Inn–it is an extraordinary site of beautifully preserved buildings, and remarkable historical vistas (of the Steel site, Lehigh’s campus and even some of the Northside). Please please please Mr. Petrucci, be a benevolent citizen to Bethlehem and do NOT build on that site. Donating it to the city would be a fantastic act of generosity, and a great contribution to future generations!

It’s likely to be in the right-of-way of the temporary span or future second span of the Hill-to-Hill Bridge. Yes, it would be a loss, but there’s no other way to ensure a future safe crossing of the Lehigh. The bridge “replacement/rehabilitation” is already in the LV Transportation Improvement Plan and they can’t do the existing H2H one side at a time.

Calendar of Meetings

Town Hall unless noted otherwise:

1/15 7PM City Council
1/24 5:30PM Northside 2027, Thomas Jefferson school, 404 E. North
2/5 7PM City Council
2/19 7PM City Council
3/5 7PM City Council
3/7 7:30AM Mayor, State of the City, ArtsQuest
3/19 7PM City Council
3/26 3:30PM Communication Survey launch
4/10 5:30PM Northside 2027, William Penn School